Lighthouse Community Renewable Energy Toolkit

Picture
This Toolkit  of Resources is developed as an ongoing project of CLEANaS, and provides resources to develop community financed commercial scale solar installations. This Toolkit was initiated under a grant provided to CLEANaS by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. The toolkit and its individual components are publicly available for free on this web page.
Status: 
Draft Authorised for general release 31/8/2013

Model Lighthouse Installation

Picture
The following characteristics are considered to represent an ideal Lighthouse installation:
  • A solar power installation of somewhere around 100kW;
  • Host site with a large flat roof area facing north, with no overshadowing and with greater than 500m2 of installation space;
  • Host with a large daytime energy consumption, preferably on every day of the week and throughout the year;
  • Host with high energy unit costs;
  • a supportive community willing to fund the solar installation; and 
  • a commercially suitable power purchase agreement or debt funding arrangement between the host and community financiers.

Toolkit Audience

CLEANaS intends on using the Toolkit resources for each Lighthouse installation to support either a community group establishing an individual installation or the site host themselves (as is quite common in the USA).  

Generally the community group will need to arrange into a business structure or be offered shares/units in a larger financing body to provide financing for the procurement, installation and management of a solar installation.  The structure of the financing organisation needs be determined on a case by case basis depending upon the size of the installation, what types of investors there are or if there is any debt or other capital involved.  

The chosen corporate entity is then likely to seek a power purchase agreement with the host in order to generate revenue and a return on investment.  Alternatively, a debt funding model may be used to repay investors, rather than entering into a power purchase agreement, and in this case a number of the Toolkit resources would be still useful.  

Introduction to this Toolkit

The Lighthouse Toolkit aims to provide key materials to make it easier for CLEANaS and other community groups to develop and finance solar installations that directly supply local businesses with electricity. The documents comprising the toolkit anticipate that each solar installation will be funded in some way by the community and will generate income by producing clean electricity which is purchased by the host business.

This Lighthouse toolkit provides materials for the establishment of an ideal Lighthouse installation which is a community funded solar energy system of around 100kW that directly supplies local businesses with electricity.

Individual solar system installations that are financed by community investment and hosted by local business provides an economic return through a commercial power purchase agreement or debt funding model. The host businesses can be varied and may include schools, shops, industry, local government facilities, community facilities and other large daytime energy users. The solar installation generates a commercial return for investors through the revenue created from the purchase of the electricity by the host or via a debt funding model for individual installations.

CLEANaS has developed and will continue to improve the Lighthouse Toolkit by involving interested and skilled individuals and organisations in Newcastle and surrounds. This toolkit includes documents, tools and contracts, and examples that support many essential aspects of the development and financing process from:

  • identifying and determining the feasibility of a site;
  • negotiating a power purchase agreement or debt funding arrangement with a host;
  • establishing a business entity that complies with legal and financial requirements;
  • seeking any development approvals that may be required;
  • sourcing quotes and a technical solution from local technology providers; and
  • raising finance sourced from the community investors.The focus of this toolkit is on the Local Government Areas of Lake Macquarie, Newcastle and Port Stephens. The toolkit is also freely available for other community groups to use to facilitate their own solar projects.